Patrick D Sherwin
English 111-81D
September 6, 2002
Warming Up: Journal Exercises,
Page 54, # 4 

            At the time, she had to have one of the most annoying voices that I had ever heard. It was just my luck that she sat behind me, and I was privileged enough to hear her voice all day long. We were working together in a new department in our company’s call center, tracking customer orders. I shouldn’t really complain; I was lucky to still have a job. But Dee just flat out drove me crazy. My style was to say what I had to say and get off the phone as quickly as possible. No extra words or phrases at all if possible. I liked to keep to the script. She, on the other hand, said at least 3 times as many words as she had to. I guess she just liked to talk. I don’t.

            We would call the customers to thank them for the order and to verify account information. The script was simple for the thanking part: “I was calling to thank you for your recent order.” I like to keep it short and simple. But Dee doesn't feel the same. Her imaginary script said “I was calling to thank you for your order placed on May Third, Two Thousand and two with our salesperson James Smith.” By the time she got done saying that, I was already half done with my call. She didn’t have to say the date of the order, nor the salesperson’s name, but she did. And that drove me insane.

            The way she said her name and extension number drove me insane as well. I would say “My name is Patrick; my extension is Five Nine Five Zero.” And that’s all I had to say. She, however, would go back to her overly verbose script and read “My name is Dee, that’s D-E-E last name Logan that’s L-O-G-A-N. My extension is Five Five Five Five-that’s double five double five.” In the time it took here to say that, I would have been off the phone already, made a restroom break, and grabbed some coffee. But it wasn’t just how many words she said that annoyed me, it was the way she said them. Her last name, Logan, sounded like it should have been spelled Loooooooooooogan, with the “o” very nasally drawn out.

            I’m not sure why it bothered me so much. She was a genuinely nice person, and other than her voice and the way she spoke, I didn’t really have any problems with her. I don’t even think I disliked her as a person. Some of us even joked with her about the way she talked. I don’t think I could do that if I really disliked her.  But then something happened that really made me wonder just how much I disliked her.

            Dee had a massive aneurysm while on the phone with a customer.  By the time I knew anything had happened and turned around to look at her, her head was already strangely cocked to the side and her arm was in a weird splayed out position.  She mumbled something and fell silent. She died later that day at the hospital.

            I’m sure many people prayed for her that day before she died.  I have quite a few devoutly religious coworkers.  I, however, am not.  I did not pray for her.  It’s just not something I do. Although I didn’t want her to die, something inside me made me wonder if I really did. Did I deep down inside hate her?  In that place so deep that I don’t even know what thoughts are there, can I hold hatred that I am not even aware of? Even though I was no longer a practicing Catholic, my Catholic Guilt still haunts me. I wondered if my dislike for her manner of speaking somehow got twisted around by God or the Devil or both, and came out as a dislike for her, or hatred, or a wish for her to die.

            Maybe that’s what the Devil really is…the doubts and fears of Man that torture him.